Security forces kill at least 60 as protests engulf Chad

N’DJAMENA, Chad — Chadian security forces opened fire on anti-government demonstrators in the country’s two largest cities Thursday killing at least 60 people, the government spokesman and a morgue official said.

Authorities imposed a curfew after the violence, which came amid demonstrations in the central African nation against interim leader Mahamat Idriss Deby’s two-year extension of his power.

Thursday’s unrest was unprecedented in Chad, which saw little public dissent during the previous regime of Deby’s father, who ruled for more than three decades until his assassination last year.

France, the African Union and others swiftly condemned the security crackdown on the demonstrators.

Samira Daoud, Amnesty International’s regional director for West and Central Africa, called on the Chadian authorities “to immediately cease the excessive use of force against protesters.”

“The authorities must take immediate steps to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for unlawful killings,” she said.

Chadian government spokesman Aziz Mahamat Saleh said 30 people were dead in the capital, N’Djamena. Organizers of the march, though, placed the toll higher, at 40, with many wounded by bullets as well. There was no independent corroboration of the figures given by the two sides.

Another 32 protesters were killed in Chad’s second-largest city, Moundou, according to an official in the city’s morgue. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said more than 60 people were wounded.